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The Feast at Solhaug : Henrik Ibsen's play Gildet paa Solhaug (1856) inspired Wilhelm Stenhammer's opera Gillet på Solhaug. The world premiere recording is now available via Sterling CD, in a 3 disc set which includes full libretto and background history.

‘Can great music be inspired by the throw of the dice?’ asks Peter Phillips, director of The Tallis Scholars, in his liner notes to the ensemble’s new recording of Josquin’s Missa Di dadi (The Dice Mass). The fifteenth-century artist certainly had an abundant supply of devotional imagery. As one scholar has put it, during this age there was neither ‘an object nor an action, however trivial, that [was] not constantly correlated with Christ or salvation’.

Francesco Cavalli’s La Calisto was the composer’s ﬁfteenth opera, and the ninth to a libretto by Giovanni Faustini (1615-1651). First performed at the Teatro Sant’Apollinaire in Venice on 28th November 1651, the opera by might have been sub-titled ‘Gods Behaving Badly’, so debauched are the deities’ dalliances and deviations, so egotistical their deceptions.

Edouard Lalo (1823-92) is best known today for his instrumental works: the
Symphonie espagnole (which is, despite the title, a five-movement
violin concerto), the Symphony in G Minor, and perhaps some movements from his
ballet Namouna, a scintillating work that the young Debussy adored.

It is not often that a major work by a forgotten composer gets rediscovered
and makes an enormously favorable impression on today’s listeners. That has
happened, unexpectedly, with Herculanum, a four-act grand opera by
Félicien David, which in 2014 was recorded for the first time.

This recording, made in the Adrian Boult Hall at the Birmingham Conservatoire of Music in June 2014, is the fourth disc in SOMM’s series of recordings with Paul Spicer and the Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir.

This well-packed disc is a delight and a revelation. Until now, even the
most assiduous record collector had access to only a few of the nearly 100
songs published by Félicien David (1810-76), in recordings by such notable
artists as Huguette Tourangeau, Ursula Mayer-Reinach, Udo Reinemann, and Joan
Sutherland (the last-mentioned singing the duet “Les Hirondelles”
with herself!).

This new release of John Taverner’s virtuosic and florid Missa
Corona spinea (produced by Gimell Records) comes two years after The
Tallis Scholars’ critically esteemed recording of the composer’s
Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas, which topped the UK Specialist Classical
Album Chart for 6 weeks, and with which the ensemble celebrated their
40th anniversary. The recording also includes Taverner’s two
settings of Dum transisset Sabbatum.

Sounds swirl with an urgent emotionality and meandering virtuosity on Jonas Kaufmann’s new Puccini album—the “real one”, according
to Kaufmann, whose works were also released earlier this year on Decca records, allegedly without his approval.

As the editor of Opera magazine, John Allison, notes in his editorial in the June issue, Donizetti fans are currently spoilt for choice, enjoying a ‘Donizetti revival’ with productions of several of the composer’s lesser known works cropping up in houses around the world.

This Winterreise is the final instalment of Matthias Goerne’s series of Schubert lieder for Harmonia Mundi and it brings the Matthias Goerne Schubert Edition, begun in 2008, to a dark, harrowing close.

Recordings

09 Feb 2007

ARNE: Six cantatas for a voice and instruments; Advice to Cloe

The English, though fundamental to the early music revival of the last half-century, have been rather remiss in exploring their native music dating from after the death of Purcell, and particularly that produced after the death of Handel.

The later eighteenth century was a period in
which the wealth of London attracted composers and performers too numerous to mention from
all over Europe. The stature of Haydn and Mozart has tended to obscure the great variety of vocal
and instrumental music enjoyed at the time, more conservative in idiom, less virtuoso, but
nonetheless enjoyable.

English music for the stage has always tended more to the comic, the witty song delivered with
an actor’s panache rather than a singer's bravura. The most durable productions of the musical
theater, the operettas of librettist Gilbert and composer Sullivan, are memorable not because of
the elevated heights they reach, but because of the completely English good humor they transmit.
It will take a Savoyard approach to revive the neglected works from the age of Thomas Arne, and
the pleasure gardens of Vauxhall and Ranelagh.

This disc, from American tenor Timothy Bentch and Hungarian soprano Mária Zadori, is a
premiere recording of a charming set of cantatas by Thomas Augustine Arne published by Walsh
in 1755, and fully scored for voice accompanied by strings and winds. The texts evoke the world
of the wealthy rake of the period, who believes in women and wine (School of Anacreon),
gathering rosebuds while ye may (Delia), winning a women's heart by plying her with wine
(Bacchus and Ariadne), revenging himself on a faithless lover by being faithless himself with
another (Lydia), and sleeping only after he is incapable of drinking more (Frolick and Free).
Indeed, this rake is a complete hellraiser and rapscallion — one might almost title these Six
immoral cantatas.

Tenor Timothy Bentch does an excellent job of evoking the license and liberty of the wealthy
Londoner. His attractive tone is always in the service of the expression of the text, changing in
color and force as the poetry requires, reflecting the shifting moods of the speaker. Bentch is a
compellingly persuasive performer. I was less taken by soprano Mária Zadori, who has had a
long career with many recordings for Hungaroton. Her light soprano is verging on the fluttery,
and her English diction is flawed. The contributions of the Hungarian period-instrument band are
first rate, and the sound is fine.

A valuable disc, presenting important and little-known repertoire, with a tenor we will certainly
be hearing more from. Warmly recommended.